Australian Politics

@Longmactoppedup What you're looking at here are the economic ideas of a late-19th century American economist named Henry George: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George

At its furthest extreme, the argument is that land and licences to exploit finite natural resources (potentially including the rights to mine minerals and emit greenhouse gasses) should be taxed heavily.

For property, the tax should only be levied against the underlying land, and not any buildings or improvements that add value. So you get taxed on what the price would be if it were a vacant lot (the unimproved site value).

Meanwhile, *all* other taxes on productive wealth generation — income tax, company tax, GST, etc., should be completely abolished.

Advocates generally combine this with a universal basic income.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

The logic is that taxing finite natural resources will cause them to be used more efficiently, and the benefits distributed widely throughout society.

Meanwhile, activity that creates wealth or adds value should be encouraged, and that means it should go untaxed.

When land and resource taxes are combined with a universal basic income, what ends up happening is that people with a lot of expensive land or who use a lot of natural resources pay a net tax.

Meanwhile, people who use few resources get a UBI that's higher than their tax bill, and therefore a net credit.

What it offers is a way that free market libertarians can respond to climate change and other environmental issues.

That being said, even if you don't agree with the full Georgist program, there is still a decent case to be made that more of the tax burden should be filled by taxes on land and natural resources.